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Well, apparently Del Monte disagrees with Ray Comfort.

Mother Nature may have thought she came up with the perfect packaging for the banana, but the man from Del Monte has other ideas.

The company has taken the view the yellow skin is not quite enough, and will sell individually-wrapped bananas at petrol stations, convenience stores, leisure centres and gyms.

The Del Monte bananas will be marketed under the slogan ‘Natural Energy Snack on the Go’.

It's a wrap: The Del Monte bananas are likely to sell for considerably more than the loose price of around 15 pence

The price has not yet been revealed, but is likely to be significantly higher than the cost of buying a loose banana at a supermarket – typically around 15p.

While the trial may seem bizarre at a time when big businesses are under pressure to reduce packaging waste, Del Monte insists the addition of a clear plastic bag is actually a green measure.

The company claims that the bag contains ‘Controlled Ripening Technology’ – which extends the shelf-life of the banana by up to six days.

The banana is put into the plastic bag when it is green and, according to the manufacturers, goes on to ripen more slowly than if it had been left in the open air.

The product is also being trialled in the U.S. where the wrapped bananas are selling for one dollar each – around 62p.

Gary Porter, of the Environment Board of the Local Government Association, said: ‘The man from Del Monte should say no. This is a backwards step which will contribute to the twin problems of landfill and litter.

‘Nature has designed out the need for bananas to have extra packaging even for sale at service stations. It’s the same yellow wrapper that protects them on the supermarket shelf.

‘Retailers and manufacturers need to cut back on packaging, not create more.

‘Every year it costs councils more than £600million in taxes to send waste to landfill. Councils and residents have made great steps in bringing that cost down by increasing recycling but we need the food industry to do much more to reduce the amount of unnecessary packaging.’

James Harvey, Del Monte’s UK managing director, told the Fresh Produce Journal: ‘Del Monte’s new CRT packaging is designed to provide significant carbon footprint savings by reducing the frequency of deliveries and the amount of waste going to landfill. The packaging is also recyclable.

‘It is a great product and consumer feedback shows a marked taste benefit too.’

While this new packaging may extend the shelf life in reality, I also think big business is more concerned with the marketing. I think this has very little to do with actually caring about the environment.

Big business would sell air conditioners on both polls of the planet if there were people stupid enough to buy them.

You look at the vast majority of advertising in America, very little of it is pragmatic and most of it is emotional appeal. It is why people buy cheap crap. It is why people buy things they cant afford. It is why people have credit cards full of contractual scams. It is why people get loans with 3 card monty language. It is why people have cell phone contracts that give them huge bills.

Very little of big business cares one rats ass about the environment, or the pay and healthcare of the workers.

Big business is learning from the gouging scam big oil has gotten away with. The corporate utopia goal now is to give you as little as possible while maximizing profits. It's goal is "money for nothing".

Whatever packaging technology this company put forth, isn't so much to save the environment as it is to get people to buy the product so they can sell you fewer bananas at the same cost or higher cost. You've admitted this in your post.

This is not a matter of supply and demand or saving the environment. This is rigging the game to maximize profits.

I wonder how much gouging big business could get away with if they were forced to print the profit margin per unit on every product? You cannot tell me that a bag of Chips which is mostly FUCKING AIR, should cost 4 bucks.

Get rid of big money out of politics, enforce anti-trust laws, get back to a reasonable pay gap and I wouldn't be so critical of our current state. But as far as I can see right now, big business wants to take us back to the horrible unregulated days before WW2 when life was much harsher on many more people.

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."ObamaCheck out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under BrianJames Rational Poet also on twitter under Brianrrs37

I wonder how much gouging big business could get away with if they were forced to print the profit margin per unit on every product?

That would be interesting to find out. I know Wal-Mart has a profit margin of roughly 2.5%

Companies like Apple, Google have profit margins of >30%.

2.5% sounds small.

For the fiscal year ending January 31, 2009, Wal-Mart reported a net income of $13.6 billion[5] on $404 billion of revenue[2] (3.4% profit margin). For the fiscal year ending January 31, 2006, Wal-Mart's international operations accounted for about 20.1% of total sales.[45]

Where do you think most of that 13 billion is going? To the health care of the workers? To taxes? To chairity? NO, it is going to the shareholders and CEOs.

You want me to cry for them, when the store clerks cant pay their bills and don't have health care?

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."ObamaCheck out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under BrianJames Rational Poet also on twitter under Brianrrs37

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."ObamaCheck out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under BrianJames Rational Poet also on twitter under Brianrrs37

For the fiscal year ending January 31, 2009, Wal-Mart reported a net income of $13.6 billion[5] on $404 billion of revenue[2] (3.4% profit margin). For the fiscal year ending January 31, 2006, Wal-Mart's international operations accounted for about 20.1% of total sales.[45]

Where do you think most of that 13 billion is going? To the health care of the workers? To taxes? To chairity? NO, it is going to the shareholders and CEOs.

You want me to cry for them, when the store clerks cant pay their bills and don't have health care?

I misremembered the number, thanks for the info. In comparasion, places like Cost Co have a profit margin of about 1.6%.

I wasn't expressing a positive or negative opinion about thier profit margin. I know that items at walmart display cost per unit (ie, you can easily compare cereal by cost per ounce) and I thought it would be interesting (I like stats) to know the profit margin on specific items rather than the company as a whole.

Also, profit would be calculated after employees are paid for (even if they are paid shit wages). Where else would the profit go besides the shareholders?

If Walmart is operating with a 3.5% profit margin, can it even realistically afford to increase wages by 10% (w/o raising prices)?

I can understand bitching about tech companies that intentionally release products that go obsolete after one year or are already obsolete when they are released (see Apple's iPhone for a prime example), but I find it hard to bitch about Wal mart (given that we don't like the fact that they treat thier employees like crap, yet we like thier cheap prices).

Not when you take into account the value of the consumer goods they retail x the sheer quantity being sold. 2.5% doesn't seem so bad after a while...

Quote:

Wal-Mart's international operations accounted for about 20.1% of total sales.[45]

That's right! America -even during economic crises- represents the lion's share of consumer capital. Nintendo was built on the mighty American dollar; if they hadn't decided to market their "Family Computer" (nes) overseas, they would have probably been in the same shape SEGA is now.

Quote:

Where do you think most of that 13 billion is going? To the health care of the workers? To taxes? To chairity? NO, it is going to the shareholders and CEOs.You want me to cry for them, when the store clerks cant pay their bills and don't have health care?

Dude, don't ever go into business management or startup your own business. You'll be broker than dogshit by the end of the month...

The idea behind profit isn't fluffy dreams of 'redistributing the wealth' or giving handouts to the poor. The idea is simply to keep businesses in the black, and out of the red (unlike Enron, which simply hid it's red ink.) That's all.

And yes, shareholders usually get money back based on this fiscal year's profits. That's the basic idea behind public investment, and investors usually expect some sort of return on their investment. As for the "CEOs" comment, I'm not sure where you got that. They may get a payraise of x%, and their stock options may go up in value. That's it. Not much different from what a cubbyhole'd employee would get, yes?

“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)

Also, profit would be calculated after employees are paid for (even if they are paid shit wages). Where else would the profit go besides the shareholders?

If Walmart is operating with a 3.5% profit margin, can it even realistically afford to increase wages by 10% (w/o raising prices)?

I can understand bitching about tech companies that intentionally release products that go obsolete after one year or are already obsolete when they are released (see Apple's iPhone for a prime example), but I find it hard to bitch about Wal mart (given that we don't like the fact that they treat thier employees like crap, yet we like thier cheap prices).

If I remember from my small business management classes years ago, most grocery stores operate on less than 5%. They make their money on volume. Unlike jewelry stores that may have as much as a 90% markup.

I'd be all sympathetic about Walmart's profit margins if it wasn't that collectively, the family is worth over $5 billion US. I remember when the big hoorah about their employee wages was going on, it would have been just over $200,000 a year additional cost to pay all of their employees a living wage.

-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.

"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken

"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.

Huge corporations move money around in all manner of ways to keep the accounting as obscure as possible. I remember a few years ago, after the Louisiana hurricanes, gasoline almost ended up at $5/gallon locally and everyone was pissed off that Exxon posted ten billion dollars in earnings that year.

Well, as it happens, part of that came from restructuring some debt that they were holding. If you were to analyze the company without that taken into account, they really made a bit less than eight billion bucks. Would anyone have shit a brick over that number or were they up in arms because it was a nice round number? I can only guess but I think I know the answer.

lalib wrote:

Also, profit would be calculated after employees are paid for (even if they are paid shit wages). Where else would the profit go besides the shareholders?

If Walmart is operating with a 3.5% profit margin, can it even realistically afford to increase wages by 10% (w/o raising prices)?

I may be going out on a limb here but we should remember that while these corporations make tiny profit margins, they do so on huge sales volume. So yah, they will never be able to hand out that 10% raise because they would have to raise prices. And why do people go to places like Wally world and CostCo? Because they are cheaper. If they had to charge the same amount of money as other places, the financial magic would be gone.

So yah, hate them for paying crap but if one is to be consistent on that, then one must buy stuff at more expensive stores to show support of the employees who would be out of a job if you actually did that.

Dude, don't ever go into business management or startup your own business. You'll be broker than dogshit by the end of the month...

You are right, because fucking other people is what it takes to get that big. If paying people crappy wages and no health care is what it takes to get that big, no thanks. I have morals.

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."ObamaCheck out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under BrianJames Rational Poet also on twitter under Brianrrs37

Huge corporations move money around in all manner of ways to keep the accounting as obscure as possible.

It's simply 'allocating'.

Move the numbers from one column/row, into another, and call it 'something else'.

I assure you, NO bank would give a line of revolving credit, if it saw a company just 2.5% above 'break even'.

30% net profits after fixed and burdened operating costs, are what is considered 'healthy' margins, by most 'academic' business models.

'Typical' markups for retailers is 5/1.

They pay $1 to the manufacturer/wholesaler, and sell it for $5, to the 'end user' (consumer).

That's the 'norm'.

Banks "wouldn't". The same banks that tanked our economy with contractual scams that created a huge bubble? These are the people you trust? The people who rigged the game and bet on their own loses?

If this is the "norm" of the free market, then tell me why prices are still going up on everything and wages remain stagnant or keep falling?

Because this "norm" is being abused and it isn't being used right now to help society, it is being used to help the few.

You really think a bag of chips is a 5/1 ratio with all that fucking air? Even if it were, most of what you pay for are the rediculous sallaries of the CEOs and marketers who convince you to buy that over priced crap.

I am old enough to remember when a bag of chips was full and much cheaper. If they could get away with charging you for one chip in that huge bag, they would.

I am not against a free market, but what we have is a rigged market. I am not convinced by "norms" when the people who set up the "norms" don't do a damn thing to take care of the people that put them where they are at,

If these "norms" worked, prices would go down and wages would keep up with the cost of living. If these "norms" are lagit, then they are being abused by the people with the money to influence politics.

You cant rely on gambling and speculation and no building. You cant keep wages down while gas and food go up and health care costs go up while profits soar.

I have seen what 30 years of republican economics have done to this country and it is nothing short of exploitation and abuse.

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."ObamaCheck out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under BrianJames Rational Poet also on twitter under Brianrrs37

Those 'sound bites' are what's put out in the media, for political reasons.

They couldn't accumulate any wealth, and finance further growth and expansion on that kind of 'bottom line' net earnings on sales.

But Walmart did accumulate wealth, finance, further growth and expansion precisely by having a lower profit margin (which they managed through relative efficiency). Look at what has happened to Taget, Kmart, Sears, etc in the past decade?

“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)